Hi, I am the person you replied to. I think all of your points go along my point that it all boils down to supply and demand. // In my town like in many others

Hi, I am the person you replied to. I think all of your points go along my point that it all boils down to supply and demand. // In my town like in many others they have lots of help wanted signs. All they need to do it pay more and they’d have a much better chance of hiring people. Right... so apparently they don't "demand" that labor badly enough to pay "whatever it takes" - as you would with a doctor when you're sick or a plumber when your house is flooding. // Teachers can’t be paid more because they are govt jobs and the govt almost always doesn’t do that. So programmers in govt are underpaid too, and they can’t raise rates. But it seems like the "government rate" is sufficient to attract the kinds of people that become public school teachers and government programmers, right? Supply and demand... // The pay of real estate agents... so the seller/buyer each pay a 30k commission for a few hours work Yeah but how many agents are you competing with and how many houses are you moving a year? The top realtor in my town moved over 20M of property a few years ago, so she cleared 600K in commissions that year. The bottom bunch of realtors in my town sold $0 worth of house and got $0 worth of commission. The reason the first woman made that $600K is because there's a demand for her services... and the reason those other guys made $0 is because there isn't. I get the point you're making about fixed fees, but these fees don't guarantee you any profit for just becoming a relator. // Some people are paid high amounts because that’s the expectation What is an example of that? To whom do you pay more than you have to in the market because of "expectations" // I used to be paid less than them by a large margin, probably I make more than most now. It’s market rates. Right, it's supply and demand as I am saying because someone needs you to do the thing you do whatever it is, and they can't find someone to do it for less.